There is a battle going on right now at Penn, and I am losing. Still, I haven't given up the fight. In fact, I think that once we soldiers return from the Diaspora, we may be able to live in symbiosis again. Even now, the reality is that the two camps basically like each other. We probably like each other more than we do those who are purely bystanders, perhaps engaged through inertia, clearly unaware that a turf war is in their midst.
This war is being waged at Penn, and the victors have already begun to take all of the spoils. No, it is a battle over the very idea of what makes a New Yorker, and the winners are clear.
Oh, this isn't a diatribe about the suburbs -- you guys are cool and all, but you're uninvolved. I'm talking about people from zip codes like 10001 and 10025, 10014 and 10021. This letter is more of a press release and a letter of my resignation. I want -- in the words of Ms. Yvonne Delbanco -- to "clear the air," at the same time as I acknowledge that at least until I graduate in slightly over a year, I will remain a minority party, perhaps not oppressed, but certainly outnumbered.
You see, there are two distinct types of New Yorkers: the Glittery ones and the Ethnic ones. Perhaps ethnic is a dangerous word to use, but know that I use it in the least traditional of senses. You see, I am a New Yorker of Jewish Eastern European origin -- both of my parents and all four of my grandparents were born in the city of New York (their parents came through Ellis Island) -- but there are Glittery New Yorkers whose ancestral history is similar. You don't have to be a WASP to be Glittery, and you don't have to be, well, ethnic to be Ethnic. It's about more than money, too. Glittery New Yorkers, on average, probably have larger trust funds than us Ethnics, but as my mom often laments, Manhattan is fast becoming an island of the rich. Plenty of Ethnics are economically viable.
Really, it's about your perception of New York. We go to the same schools (sometimes -- though, of course, Hunter and Fieldston will have more Ethnics than Collegiate or those sent off to boarding school), eat the same bagels and lox, take the same subways. But do you love New York for its glamour? Or the grime? Do you go to Lotus? Or Tap A Keg? Do you prefer the New 42nd Street or, well, 42nd Street? Have you ever been to Queens?
What's the likelihood you'll move to Brooklyn after graduation?
At Penn, you barely see us, but we are here. We're the New Yorkers who wish our private schools hadn't eradicated our accents. The ones who fight to be from (the still Ethnic) Morningside Heights and not the (fast becoming Glittery) Upper West Side. I'm not going to say we love the City more -- I mean, we might, but Glittery NYers like it too -- but we experience it differently.
Yvonne promises me that when we go home, we will be back on a more level playing field. At school, she explains, it appears that Glitter has already won, but on the home front we're still in the running. And, of course, we both have Glittery friends. They're a part of us, just as we're a part of them.
Still.
I rest my case.
- Yona
